When an application developer models a user interface for a user device, the modeling tool provides a modeling workspace regardless of the target user device. Thus, it can happen that the developer prepares a user interface for a larger target screen than desired. For example, a developer may forget the dimensions of the target screen and incorrectly treat the design workspace as the target screen size. Sometimes the developer does not know what target user device will be used, and thus cannot guarantee that the user interface will be useful to the target user device. A user interface developed for a larger screen than the actual target screen may not run or may be displayed incorrectly. This problem could be exacerbated in the situation where a company wishes to use the same user interface application on multiple devices used by its employees. For example, a sales employee might be working remotely on a laptop from a hotel, while another sales employee works offline via a pocket PC at a client site, and another sales employee works from a desktop computer at the company site. The screens of those three devices differ significantly in dimensions, and a user interface modeled for the desktop might not work with, e.g., the pocket PC.
To solve such a situation, a developer might decide to always design its user interface to fit the smallest screen possible. Of course, this can potentially waste large amounts of screen space, as well as decrease the amount of user interface components for the user interface. This could also affect the way in which user interface components are positioned on available screen space. For example, if a developer knows that its client may use laptop computers and PDAs, if the developer develops the user interface to work on the PDA screen, and the client uses the user interface solely for laptop computers, then much of the laptop's available screen space would be wasted.